Abstract

Research of Northern Velebit started in the early 90s by Slovak cavers. From then on, each year at least one caving expedition is carried out in the Northern Velebit. In 22 years in the Northern Velebit area a total of 348 caves were explored of which three caves are deeper than 1, 000 m, five caves are deeper than 500 m, nine caves deeper than 200 m, and 27 caves deeper than 100 meters. Other explored caves do not reach 100 m of depth. Most of cave entrances are located at an altitude between 1, 400 to 1, 600 m. Basic morphological features of Velebit caves are verticality and the incidence of major verticals. The biggest discovered verticals are located in Patkov gušt (P553), Cave systemVelebita (P513), Meduza (P333) and in Cave system Lukina jama (P329). Five verticals are deeper than 200 m and 100 m verticals are quite common. The majority of Croatian caving associations participated in the cave research but the most of those expeditions were organized by the Speleological Committee of Croatian Mountaineering Association. During all these years of research an excellent international cooperation was formed with cavers from Slovakia, Hungary, Belgium, Polish, Lithuania, France, Italy, Switzerland, Great Britain, Slovenia, Spain, Bulgaria, USA and Serbia. In the last four years, there were four expeditions. Results of these expeditions are presented in this article.